


gwanak-gu, 2019

by flying_dream



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: 11k words of Hyunjin being a mess and Minho realising he is not repulsed by it, Alternate Universe - College/University, Hyunjin lowkey has a manic pixie dream girl aesthetic only without the toxic takeaways so it's okay, I think I'm not sure don't ask me, M/M, Meet-Ugly, Minho has smarticle particles, More like acquaintances really, Please accept my meagre offering Hyunho Nation, Strangers to Lovers, i don't know what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:08:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28836828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flying_dream/pseuds/flying_dream
Summary: Minho laughs disbelievingly. “Wait. So you mean to tell me that you ran over a cat with the wheel of a freakingbicycle?That you were riding inthisweather with no hood on?”“I didn’t mean to!” Hyunjin wails.- Or: Hyunjin is a menace on a floral bicycle and Minho discovers that he might just be into that.
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 54
Kudos: 264





	gwanak-gu, 2019

**Author's Note:**

> hello hyunho nation. this is my first time venturing into your tag with my own fic so i'm not really sure how it goes here, like what you guys are into or anything. i don't know how to describe this fic either tbh or whether it's any good. i just don't know.
> 
> to nic: happy birthday! i might not be able to ship you something from halfway across the world (next year maybe) but i could dip into my ship-in-law's tag to whip you up a fic instead. i don't even know what hyunho dynamic you like so i'm just going to throw this at you and run.

**Gwanak-gu, 2019**

The clock has just ticked past six forty-five in the evening when the door to the clinic crashes open. A gust of wind blows in flecks of rain through the gap, the downpour that began in the early hours of the afternoon hitting the linoleum floor as a blur of red and black zooms inside, wailing something incomprehensible. Minho, who jerked upright from the reports he’s meant to be typing up at the outburst, remains frozen in the awkward pose he’s in, blinking at the boy sobbing on the other side of the desk.

“I’M SO SORRY,” he cries. “I didn’t mean to do it, it just came out of nowhere! Please, you have to help me. I don’t want to be a _murderer!_ ”

If they were anywhere else, this might’ve been a concerning exclamation to hear. As it stands, Minho works part-time in a veterinary clinic and, judging from the lump of matted orange fur in the boy’s arms, he can hazard a guess at what has happened here.

“It’s okay,” he says slowly, lowering his hands from the weird claw pose they’re still in. He quickly saves the document he’s working on and rises from his seat behind the main desk, offering what he hopes is a placating smile. Now that he’s not as startled anymore, he realises that he actually recognises the kid. “I’ll just go and grab the vet for you. It’s Hyunjin, right?”

The boy hiccups partway through a sob, his eyes rounding to the size of dinner plates. “Y-You know me?”

“Um, yeah?” Minho sends him a quizzical look. “We’re part of the same dance club at SNU, aren’t we?”

“Well, yeah,” he mutters, flushing pink – or pink _er_ at least. His face is already flushed from how warm the foyer is in comparison to the chill outside. “We are. But I didn’t think you _knew_ me.”

To be fair, Minho can’t fault him for that assumption. While this is his third year in their university’s dance club, Hyunjin only joined a couple of months ago alongside the rest of the new crop of freshmen. They haven’t really had any reason to interact aside from the general niceties that comes with being in the same club, mostly since freshmen tend to be restricted to dancing with other freshmen only, especially when it comes to competitions. All things considered, it’s not surprising that they haven’t exchanged more than ten words before today.

That being said, a few standout dancers are sometimes shuffled into the performances with upperclassmen. From the sound of things, Hyunjin is going to be one of those kids. So when you look at it that way, there’s no way Minho _wouldn’t_ know him.

(That, and the fact that a good chunk of the club fancies Hyunjin. His admirers like to call him Prince behind his back. Minho privately thinks it’s one of the cringiest nicknames he’s heard in a while, but that’s not Hyunjin’s fault.)

“Well, I do know you,” he says to Hyunjin and then ducks into the back to hunt down Doctor Oh. He finds the veterinarian inspecting the jaw of a terrier that they’re keeping overnight following his periodontal flap surgery earlier this afternoon. “Sorry to interrupt you, Doc, but we have an emergency appointment. I know we don’t usually take in anyone this close to closing time, but I’ve got a distressed uni student out in the front who accidentally ran over a cat and wants us to take a look at it.”

Doctor Oh lets go of the terrier’s jaw with a grimace. “Kids these days. It’s a wonder any of you have a license with the way you drive around.”

Minho doesn’t even bother to roll his eyes in reply. After several months here, he’s become immune to all of Doctor Oh’s grumbles about _kids these days._ As long as he gets his paycheck and a glowing recommendation for his CV, he doesn’t really care whether Doctor Oh thinks the human race will be doomed when their generation takes the helm.

Hyunjin is still crying when Minho returns to retrieve him although thankfully, it’s not as uncontrollably. He cradles the cat to his chest, whispering apologies down to its fur. To be honest, Minho is surprised that the cat hasn’t lashed out at him yet because he sure as hell would’ve.

The main receptionist on shift, Eunha, seems to have decided to leave them to their own devices. She tosses Minho a grimace when she spots him, silently asking him to take Hyunjin off her hands.

“Come on through,” Minho says, adopting the gentle tone he employs whenever he has to deal with any hysterical owners. Unsurprisingly, it’s a pretty common occupational hazard. “Doctor Oh is waiting for you in his office.”

“Okay,” Hyunjin says, his voice wavering.

“It’s a good idea to try to keep a brave face,” he advises not unkindly when he sees more tears well up in the boy’s eyes as they head to the back. “Animals are pretty intuitive and will usually go off your emotions when they’re in stressful situations. If you seem calm, they’re more likely to be as well.”

“Okay,” he repeats and the word cracks on the second syllable as he says it.

He lets out a long sniff and visibly tries to blink back his tears. The sight is more endearing than Minho expects it to be. He can feel a smile tug at his mouth in response so he turns his face away, hoping to hide it.

For all of Minho’s advice, however, Hyunjin nearly bursts into a fresh wave of hysterics the moment that Doctor Oh looks away from the injured cat he placed on the observation table to narrow his stern eyes at him and ask him what happened.

“I didn’t mean to!” he wails. “I promise I didn’t mean to! I was – I was just on my way home and then it randomly shot out into the road from underneath a car I was passing and I didn’t have enough time to swerve. So I picked it up and came here as quickly as possible so you could save it because I don’t know how to. I never meant to become a cat-killer, you have to believe me!”

Doctor Oh gapes at him, taken aback.

Tentatively, Minho reaches over and pats Hyunjin’s upper arm in comfort.

“Well,” Doctor Oh says after a moment, “you did the right thing in coming here. I’ll run through some physical examinations to determine whether anything has been fractured or broken by the collision, then take its vitals. If there is a fracture, we’ll take a scan to determine how serious it is and also do a full body scan to determine whether there is any internal bleeding that I might’ve missed the signs of during the physical examination. Then we can work on deciding a treatment.”

“It’s probably a good idea for you to take a seat while he gets started on this,” Minho suggests to Hyunjin.

Hyunjin lets out another sniffle, this one sounding particularly wet, but makes no attempt to move. It falls to Minho to steer him to one of the chairs. He fills a plastic cup with water from the cooler and offers it to the younger.

“So you’re not dehydrated from all of the tears,” he can’t help but tease.

The uneven splodges of pink in Hyunjin’s cheeks deepen in colour. He accepts the cup with a muttered thanks and then ducks his head, avoiding Minho’s eyes.

“Minho,” Doctor Go says sharply, calling for his attention. “Come and take the cat’s vitals for me.”

Minho tears his gaze from Hyunjin. With it falls away the somewhat unprofessional thoughts that have lingered in the back of his mind since Hyunjin burst in from the rain. He snaps into the clinical mindset like he snaps on a pair of plastic gloves and then approaches the table, sliding into a familiar routine that has been drilled into him through hours of shadowing and practice.

“His vitals seem to be in order,” he concludes after his inspection. “His temperature is thirty eight point seven degrees Celsius. The respiratory rate and heart rate is higher than average which is likely due to the stress from the accident. Respiratory rate is thirty two breaths per minute and the heart rate is two hundred and ten beats per minute. The main worry is that he’s underweight; however, it does make sense given the circumstances.”

“And why is that?” Doctor Oh prompts.

“Well, he doesn’t have a collar. I’d say he’s living on the streets and doesn’t eat regular meals.”

“I’d wager you’re right about that,” he agrees. “We’ll have to take it down to the shelter once it’s recovered enough from the surgery to do so.”

“Um,” Hyunjin speaks up tentatively, “does this mean he’s okay?”

He seems to have finally calmed down. Well, there are no tears on his face anymore which seems close enough. He’s settled for fiddling with the rings on his fingers instead and chewing on his bottom lip. Minho’s eyes briefly fix to the bite of Hyunjin’s teeth before he looks away, turning back to Doctor Oh for his diagnosis.

“Oh no, it still has an injury. It has a femoral fracture on its right leg – can you see how it’s swollen just there? It appears to be a minor fracture, but we’ll do a few scans to be sure. From here, it’s a case of surgical stabilisation and administering pain medication. Since it appears to have no owner, we’ll keep it in-clinic until it’s safe to move it before dropping it off to the shelter.”

“But he’ll survive?” Hyunjin presses.

Minho is the one who nods in reply. “He’ll be walking in no time,” he reassures.

“Well, not _no time_. It will take several weeks for the cat to heal properly from a femoral fracture. You should know this already, Minho.”

Clearly, Doctor Oh has never heard of tact.

His words don’t dishearten Hyunjin, however, who seems to be comforted by the confirmation that he is not, in fact, a cat-killer as he feared. He sinks back with a huge exhale, the tension lifting off his shoulders, and smiles for the first time that night. Minho has just enough time to observe that it’s a nice smile before he is swept away by his next task.

“You didn’t need to stay for the entire appointment,” he tells Hyunjin when he finally clocks out much later than usual. He zips his puffer coat all the way up to the top and slings his backpack onto his shoulder. The weight of the textbooks in there hits his back with a thud. “He’s not really your cat at the end of the day.”

Hyunjin looks horrified by the thought. “I was the one who injured him so I’m the one responsible for him. Of course I had to stay.”

“Fair enough,” Minho concedes. “But you didn’t need to stay until _I_ was done for the night.”

That has Hyunjin blushing again. Apparently he does that sort of thing often.

“I wanted to stick around to thank you,” he admits, “and to say sorry. I know I was kind of… a lot earlier. But you were really nice to me even though I must’ve been annoying as hell to deal with so I figured it’d be rude if I left without saying anything. So I stayed.”

Huh. Femoral fracture-inducement notwithstanding, maybe Hyunjin’s not such a bad guy after all.

Minho lifts his shoulders in half a shrug as they reach the front door to the clinic, pushing it open to reveal the thunderstorm outside. Almost immediately, the wind rushes forward to claw at every inch of their exposed skin. The raindrops feel like shards of ice.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “It’s part of the job description.”

“Still,” Hyunjin insists. “I wanted to thank you either way. I was going to offer to treat you to food, but I don’t tend to eat anything past half seven and I figured it’d be awkward if I just sat there and stared at you while you ate for twenty minutes. I mean unless you wanted to do that?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Because I honestly wouldn’t mind it if that’s what you want! I can’t really promise anything more expensive than what you can find in a convenience store because I’m highkey very broke right now because of rent, but – “

“Hyunjin,” he interrupts. “It’s okay.”

The freshman cuts off in the middle of his rambling. He looks like something out of a drama: rain pouring off the top of his dark hair, his eyes big and sparkly and innocent, his lips parted. Not the suave love interest who is bearing his heart in a fit of passion, but the main character who is being confronted with a truth that never even occurred to them.

Minho eyes his exposed head with some concern. “Shouldn’t you have a hood on that windbreaker?”

“One of my best friends detached it to make a parachute,” Hyunjin says like that’s an answer that makes perfect sense.

Minho decides to just roll with it. “That would be a pretty small and ineffective parachute.”

“It wasn’t for him. It was for his boyfriend’s boiled egg.”

He nods like he understands. “Ah.”

“They were throwing them from my window and timing which one stayed in the air for the longest,” he explains. “The windbreaker hood won.”

“Well, in that case, it was all worth it. But you should probably get into your car now or else you’ll catch a cold.”

Hyunjin looks at him quizzically. “I don’t have a car.”

“Um.” Minho furrows his eyebrows, squinting at him through the sheets of rain that separate them. The lighting outside of the clinic isn’t so great, casting murky shadows across Hyunjin’s face, but it shows enough to let him know that he is as confused as Minho is. For the life of him, Minho doesn’t know why. “Didn’t you say that you accidentally ran the cat over on your way home?”

“Well, yeah, but not in a _car._ I can’t even drive. I was on my bike, see?” He twists to point his finger at a spot to their right when he freezes, his jaw dropping to a comically low height. “Oh no.”

“What?” Minho asks.

He answers the question for himself when he spins and sees just what has Hyunjin so horrified – or rather, when he doesn’t see anything at all. As in, there is nothing in the spot that Hyunjin is pointing to. Meaning: his bike has been stolen.

“My bike!” he exclaims, heartbroken.

Minho has no idea what to even say. How is he meant to react to this? Comfort Hyunjin, crack a joke? Run? Whatever it is, he gets the feeling he needs to say something and he needs to say it _now_ or else he’ll be the world’s biggest asshole. That, and he has a funny suspicion that Hyunjin might be about to cry again and he doesn’t know if he’s awake enough to handle that now that he’s on the other side of a surgery.

“It’s okay,” he says quickly. “We can – we can go to the police or something, right? Register a stolen vehicle, that sort of thing. What’s the numberplate for it?”

“What numberplate?” Hyunjin asks. He already sounds somewhat hysterical. “Why would there be a numberplate on my bike?”

“What kind of bike doesn’t have a numberplate?”

He shrieks, “What kind of bike _does?”_

Minho stares at him, bewildered. He’s pretty sure all motorbikes are legally required to have a numberplate… Unless Hyunjin doesn’t own a motorbike.

“Hyunjin,” he says slowly. “When you say bike, do you mean… a bicycle? Without an engine?”

“ _Of course_ I do! What in the hell would I mean if not that?”

Minho is too baffled by the confirmation to be offended by the anger in the way Hyunjin spits his words.

He laughs disbelievingly. “Wait. So you mean to tell me that you ran over a cat with the wheel of a freaking _bicycle?_ One that you were riding in _this_ weather with no hood on? _”_

“I didn’t mean to!” Hyunjin wails.

He bursts into a fresh round of tears and Minho immediately regrets opening his mouth at all.

The evening is quickly turning out to be nothing like what he imagined. He envisioned a standard afternoon shift at the clinic: shadowing Doctor Oh in his appointments, writing up his patient notes, answering queries over the phone and doing the odd bits of general admin that weren’t really advertised under his job but gave him something to do either way. Maybe sneak in some studying if the hours went particularly slowly.

Instead, he ended up with quite possibly the most emotional and dramatic person he has ever met, a homeless cat with a fractured femur and a stolen bicycle. And it’s raining like monsoon season has arrived two months early.

“Right,” Minho says, trying to assume control over whatever the fuck this situation is. “Either way, we can still sort something out. Let’s just get out of the rain so we can think about this properly.”

He crooks his finger at Hyunjin so he knows to follow and then strides across the mini carpark at the front of the clinic to where his beat-up Honda Civic sits. Behind him, he can hear each of Hyunjin’s sloshing footsteps as he hurries after him.

He slides into the passenger seat with a touch more hesitation, looking unsure of himself now that he’s actually in Minho’s car. With the way he looks right now, Minho can’t help but wonder how someone so tall can carry himself like he’s a good few inches shorter than he really is. There’s just something so painfully _young_ about Hyunjin.

Naïve is probably a better word for it. Or earnest. It should turn Minho off because he's nothing if not a chronic realist and tends to have little patience for those who are not - but oddly enough, he finds that he’s willing to stick around.

“What do we do now?” Hyunjin asks, looking utterly miserable.

Even if it wasn’t about the fact that his bike has been stolen, Minho starts to feel a little guilty for laughing earlier. He pushes it down and busies himself with turning up the heating so they can be warm again. Right now, the car is almost unbearably cold. At least the rain distracted him from it when he was outside.

“I don’t know if you have Facebook or anything,” he says as he does this, “but there are a bunch of groups on there that you can post in. There’s one for SNU students, then one for Gwanak-gu in general and also one for university students in all of Seoul. Your course will probably have one too – what degree are you taking?”

“Um. International Studies?” Hyunjin answers like he’s not entirely certain of this himself.

“Yeah, then you’ll definitely have one. Post in those groups with a description and a picture of your bike and hopefully someone will know something. Maybe not in your course one actually since you're probably expected to only talk about stuff related to your degree in there, but the rest of them are fair game.”

“Okay,” he says hesitantly, reaching for his phone. His lockscreen is a picture of a small dog, its head cocked to the side as it glares up at the camera. A hand is visible on the left side of the screen aiming a finger-heart at it. “Just… post with a description of the bike and where I lost it, yeah?”

“And a picture if you have one.”

“I took a photoshoot with it when I first bought it so I should,” he mumbles, lost in the concentration of the task ahead.

The heat starts to kick in as he writes up the Facebook posts. Figuring it’s weird to just sit there in silence and stare at him while he does it, Minho turns the radio on to whatever generic channel it’s automatically set to and lets the OST of the month gently fill up the empty space. It’s not one of his favourites, but he’s heard it enough around the city to know how it goes so he hums along to the lyrics.

“Oh, I _love_ this song,” Hyunjin breathes.

Still humming, Minho turns the volume up for him. Hyunjin twists to thank him with a beam, his eyes like stars. The gesture catches Minho off-guard and he falters. The melody stutters to a halt in his mouth.

See, Minho could already see why Hyunjin has half the dance club fawning over him if he looked at the facts in an _objective_ sense. Hyunjin has a beautiful face that will probably be even more beautiful when he grows into his features properly. Plump lips and a perfectly sculpted nose, the most aesthetically placed teardrop mole beneath his left eye – he is a careful curation of features as if God himself took extra time to mould him together.

He’s pretty in the way that models are pretty. Idol-pretty, the front cover of _Vogue_ pretty. A prince from a Joseon era movie pretty. Could walk the runway for Dior and go viral doing it pretty. Could commit a heinous crime and get a fan club for it pretty. Could be drenched from a thunderstorm after cycling through it on a bike without a hood on, his long hair plastered to his neck and a constant sniffle planted in his nose, but still look gorgeous pretty.

So yeah, Minho knows _why_ Hyunjin has admirers.

But that’s not what he sees when Hyunjin turns to smile at him, wide and toothy and rain dripping into his eyes. His big, brown, sparkly-like-the-Milky-Way-Galaxy eyes. Sure, Hyunjin might have prince-like visuals, but beyond that… Hyunjin is _cute._

And as much he likes to deny it, Minho is a sucker for all things cute.

God fucking damn it.

**Hyunjin Hwang > Seoul Universities’ Students • **1 day ago

URGENT !!!! This evening somewhere between 6:45pm and 8:45pm, someone stole my beloved bike :((( It was stolen from outside of Gwanak Veterinary Clinic at 325 Yellow Wood Walk, Gwanak-gu. It’s black with 18 gears and I’ve painted flowers and smiley faces all over it in lots of pastel colours and it’s very pretty. It also has been signed by me (Hwang Hyunjin) and my best friends (Kim Seungmin, Han Jisung, Lee Felix and Yang Jeongin) in white marker so you really can’t mistake it for anyone else’s!! It also has a woven basket attached to the front of the handlebars because I like feeling like I’m in a Studio Ghibli movie whenever I ride it. If you see it anywhere, please PM me because I really love it. I will buy a chocolate bar for whoever manages to help me get it back, thank youuu <3333

Hyunjin is not soaked to the bone the next time Minho sees him. He _is,_ however, wearing one of the ugliest and fuzziest cardigans Minho has ever had the misfortune to set eyes upon – but somehow, he manages to make it work. Maybe it’s because there’s no sign that Hyunjin is aware of just how ghastly his cardigan is. He seems content to display it with pride while he sits at a table with a group of his friends, joking around and making a general ruckus.

The five of them are a loud bunch – it’s the reason why Minho looked over in their direction in the first place – but they seem like a sweet one too. At least, that’s what he thinks before one of them lets out a shriek not unlike a pterodactyl and throws his fold of cards down with a hearty swear.

“This game is fucking _rigged!”_ he hollers, loud enough for the entire café to hear.

The boy sitting next to Hyunjin smirks. “Sounds like something a loser would say.”

“You wanna take this outside, little bitch? I’ll drag your ass across the asphalt, just fucking watch me.”

For all of the boy’s posturing, all it does is have his friends break out into laughter. He manages to maintain his composure for three seconds before he follows suit.

Minho’s mouth curls into a smile as he watches them. His eyes drift over to Hyunjin specifically: the clap of his hands as he doubles over in his seat, the fragment of sunlight that is captured by the sparkle in his eye. His amusement is audible even from where Minho stands at the counter, waiting for his coffee.

All of a sudden, Hyunjin falters mid-laugh. It takes him a second to realise that it’s because he’s caught Minho staring over at him. For a moment, all they do is look at each other wordlessly, eyes latched onto one another across the campus café floor, and Minho knows that if he looks away now, nothing will come of it.

He quirks an eyebrow instead. Just enough for Hyunjin to catch it – and judging from the way he immediately turns beet red, he does.

_Cute._

Chuckling under his breath, Minho turns away to collect his drink. The table full of freshmen falls suspiciously quiet, save from one booming, “ _WHERE?”_ that is quickly cut off with a winded grunt.

A smile plays upon his lips. He takes more time than he needs to add extra dustings of cinnamon to his whipped cream before he turns sharply on his heel, gaze already fixed to the table in the far corner. He manages to catch five pairs of eyes peering owlishly in his direction before they jerk back around, descending into a hush of embarrassed whispers.

To his delight, it seems that Hyunjin is particularly flustered at being caught in the act of staring at him. And though Minho knows it’s a bit cruel to go over after that blunder, he’s kind of interested in seeing where it will lead him if he does. So instead of leaving to meet Chan and Changbin like he’s meant to, he crosses the café until he’s right next to their table. The five boys look up at him like a group of cornered animals.

“Hello again,” he says, directing the greeting to Hyunjin. “How’s it going?”

Hyunjin seems to be incapable of meeting his eyes. “Uh, yes.”

Minho blinks.

“I – I mean,” he hurries to clarify, “hi. I’m good, how are you?”

His friend who lost the card game lets out a soft groan and drops his head onto the shoulder of the guy next to him. The impromptu headrest looks just as pained at having to witness this.

“I’m good,” Minho says and makes sure to give Hyunjin an encouraging smile so that he can relax. You know, instead of looking at Minho like he’s about to sink his teeth into Hyunjin’s throat or something. “Did you ever manage to find your bike then?”

Thankfully, that seems to do the trick.

Like a switch inside of him has been flicked the other way, Hyunjin straightens up and his face brightens with a smile. If he were Chan, Minho would describe the change as something like the moment the sun breaks through the cover of clouds on a spring day. How it bathes everything that it touches in a golden light so that even the most ordinary of objects shines like it’s something special. Or the feeling you get when you tip your head up towards the sky so you can soak in the serenity of a peaceful afternoon, where nothing exists but the glow of the here and now.

But Minho isn’t Chan. He deals in mathematical calculations and physiology and biological processes, not pretty words and metaphors.

So this is what happens: the muscle in Hyunjin’s face pulls his mouth upwards and he smiles, endearingly wide with his teeth on display. Something about the shape and set of it is strikingly disarming. His eyes illuminate with a fresh flicker of light, scrunching up at the corners like almonds. And Minho’s heart starts to quicken ever so slightly.

“I did!” Hyunjin exclaims. “This really nice ahjumma messaged me on Facebook because she saw it in her neighbour’s garden and she helped us get it back. Turns out it was some thirteen year old girl who stole it so she gave it back when her dad realised it wasn’t actually a gift. Then the ahjumma fed us tea and biscuits so I bought her two bars of chocolate instead of just the one since she was so kind.”

“She does sound very kind,” Minho agrees.

“She really was. Speaking of which – um, thank you by the way. For the other night, I mean. You had to deal with me being a nutcase over the cat and then over my bike which is more than anyone should have to handle to be honest – “

“Agreed,” one of his friends coughs, only to be kicked in the shin by another.

“ – and I really appreciate it,” Hyunjin continues much more loudly. He sends the other boys a withering glance before he finally looks Minho in the eye properly. Now that he’s over his embarrassment, he’s back to being all dewy-eyed and earnest like he was the other night. Which is… yeah. It’s something alright. “So yeah, um, sorry for being such a weirdo and thank you for keeping your cool while I was. You’re probably the main reason why I even have my bike back.”

“Nah, I’m sure you would’ve gotten it back with or without me,” Minho says. He shifts his coffee to the other hand. “Also, there’s nothing wrong with being weird. Keeps things interesting if you are.”

“Um. That’s usually a cue to say that I’m not weird, but thank you? I think?”

Minho laughs. “I mean, you can’t blame me for agreeing. You’re the one who was riding a bike in the middle of a thunderstorm. In a windbreaker with no hood on."

“It’s not _my_ fault that Jisung stole it to make a parachute.”

“If you want me to regret it, I don’t,” the one who lost the card game – Jisung, apparently – scoffs. “I won the competition with that parachute. God, who’s doing it like me?”

“You only won because the wind kept your egg up,” his boyfriend says heatedly.

Jisung tosses him a pitying look and cups his cheek. “My dear, sweet Felix. Is this what you tell yourself late at night so that you can finally fall asleep without your regrets haunting your every waking moment?”

“Can you two not?” the boy closest to Minho groans. “You’ve already used up your thirty minute flirting quota for the day.”

“This is blatant discrimination,” Jisung hisses.

“I don’t _care_. You guys are going to scare Hyunjin’s cr – friend off if someone doesn’t keep you in check!”

Friend, huh?

“Not friend,” Hyunjin says quickly, seeming to have picked up on the same thing. “Minho’s my senior at the dance club, you guys. He’s my sunbaenim.”

Minho pretends to be hurt. “You don’t think we’re friends?”

“Um.” He bites his lip while he peers at Minho, searching for a sign of which answer he’d prefer. Minho makes sure to keep his expression as straight as possible. In the end, Hyunjin ventures, “No?”

“That’s a shame. I would’ve thought that after everything we went through the other night, we’d at least be _friends_.”

“Uh – I mean – “

Before Hyunjin can descend into another brilliant display of his panicked self, Minho grins, the quirk of his mouth wicked and sharp. Hyunjin really is too easy to fluster. He decides he likes it; it’s cute, the way Hyunjin flounders whenever he’s confronted with something he doesn’t expect. Very cute.

“In that case,” he says, his words curling with amusement, “I guess I’ll just have to try harder to impress you then.”

If anything, this only confuses Hyunjin even more.

“I really don’t think there’s any need for that. We can be friends if you want to be,” he says weakly.

“No, no, it’s fine. If I have to work for it, that’s cool with me. I’ll make sure I do my best to earn the title.” He takes a sip of his coffee, using the cup to hide his grin. “I’ll see you at the dance club meeting tomorrow then?”

Hyunjin manages a nod, still lost.

“See you around,” Minho says, throwing him one last smile.

With that, he turns back the way he came and makes a beeline for the exit. Just before the door snaps shut behind him, he hears Jisung exclaim, “Hyunjin, you fucking dumbass, he was flirting with you!” and then their table erupts with noise once again.

Minho has always loved dancing. When he was a kid, he was convinced he would turn it into a career – and he likely would’ve had it not been for an unfortunate incident that involved his neighbour’s Siamese cat and a passing Ford Fiesta. Thankfully, the cat survived the accident, but the hours between the collision and her return home had left Minho too anxious to do anything but stare out of the window, waiting for their car to pull up in the street. Ever since then, he’s known that he wants to be on the other side: the one doing all of the work in a clinic somewhere so that little boys like Minho who are waiting for a pet to come home okay can get their wish.

That being said, eight and a half year old Minho really didn’t know how much work he was signing up for when he committed his heart to the career change. There’s always so much studying to do on the DVM course. So many drugs to memorise the name of, so much lab work. Last year Changbin once told him that Minho even lists clinical terms in his sleep sometimes.

With his time split between the long six year journey to his qualifications and his job at the clinic, Minho needs the sort of break that dancing can give him. And what better way to do it than to join SNU’s official dance club?

“Good afternoon,” Yena says in careful English when Minho walks into the studio. “I would like to return a book.”

He raises his eyebrows. “What am I meant to do about that?”

“Of course,” Jungahn says in answer to Yena, also in English. “Can I please see your book?”

Baffled, Minho looks to Hangyul who has sunken into a split and is stretching his torso forward, his hands sliding across the floor. It looks painful.

“Yena has a test coming up for an English unit she’s taking,” he explains. “So she asked Jungahn to help her practice the phrases she was taught. Why on earth she decided to try to pick up a second language now, I don’t know. _I_ can barely speak Korean and it’s the only language I know.”

“Don’t you think the weather is lovely today?” Jungahn asks. “I’ve always loved the sun, how about you?”

Yena looks at her blankly before fixing a plastic smile on her face. “I’m fine, thank you. And you?”

“It’s not going very well,” Hangyul adds.

In response, Yena plants her foot on his back so he has to stay down.

Grinning, Minho watches the two of them dissolve into their daily squabble, Yena’s English test all but forgotten, while he runs through his own set of stretches. Already, he can feel the tension escaping his shoulders. Once he passes through those doors, it’s like everything outside of this room just falls away. All that really matters is the burn of his body when he works it through a routine (and how loudly Hangyul shrieks when Yena tickles the back of his neck).

Someone has already hooked their phone up to the speakers – Yugyeom from the sounds of it – so music plays in the background while people filter in and get ready for the session. Minho sings along to it under his breath, watching as his reflection in the mirror throws the image back to him. It’s because he’s facing the mirrors that he catches the exact moment that Hyunjin walks into the studio in tow with a couple of other members as well as one of his friends from the café. Felix, was it? The boyfriend with the boiled eggs.

He watches him in the corner of his eye, curious to see more of what Hyunjin is like when he’s not self-conscious about the fact that Minho can see him.

Cute. That’s what he is. The more Minho sees him, the more baffled he is by the moniker that Hyunjin has earned. Have none of his admirers ever stopped to look at him? To _properly_ look at him, he means. Not just to admire his face, but to pick up on his mannerisms – the way he throws his entire body into a laugh, how he turns away from affectionate gestures but likes to drape himself on top of his friends with a cheeky smile. He’s loud and he’s dramatic and he’s _cute._

Minho likes it more than he should.

He decides not to be the one to approach Hyunjin this time. They catch each other’s eye a few times during the dance practice, but aside from a challenging quirk of his eyebrow, Minho doesn’t do anything. He wants to see whether Hyunjin has caught onto the line that Minho has cast out into the sea. Whether he _wants_ to.

It turns out that he does. Hyunjin eventually wanders over during their last water break, looking slightly apprehensive but determined. For the sake of the freshman’s dignity, Minho doesn’t point out that he can see Felix’s thumbs up of encouragement in the mirror and instead looks up at Hyunjin with an acknowledging smile.

“Fancy seeing you over on this side.”

Shuffling his feet, Hyunjin rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah. I just… wanted to say hi, I guess?”

“Hi,” Minho replies.

Hyunjin smiles, his cheeks already dusting pink. Minho thinks he’d like to find out whether he just blushes easily or whether it’s something that’s reserved for him. He hopes it’s the second.

“Hi,” he murmurs. He points at a spot on the ground next to Minho. “Can I sit?”

He shrugs. “Sure.”

Permission granted, Hyunjin drops down beside him and sits with his back against the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. They look like they’re a mile long which Minho might’ve been envious about back when he was fifteen, but all he does now is appreciatively run an eye over them. He glances back at Hyunjin’s face to see whether he has noticed, only to find him staring down at his rings as he fiddles with them.

“So…” Hyunjin stretches out the word as he searches for something to say. He eventually lands on, “I forgot to ask you yesterday, but um, how’s the cat doing? The one from the other night, I mean.”

“He’s fine,” Minho says. “The surgery went well and he seems to be well on his way to recovery. I think we’re relocating him tomorrow.”

“Good. That’s… good. I honestly feel so bad that I hurt it. I, like, cried for ages when I got home that night.” He pauses, looking over at Minho with an awkward grimace. “That probably wasn’t very cool of me to admit, was it?”

Minho decides not to remind him of how hard he cried all throughout their first meeting and instead hums pensively. “Hm, I don’t know. I feel like I would’ve cried too if I had been in your position.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” he confirms.

He lets out a little laugh when he sees how doubtful Hyunjin is of this. His eyes are open wide, eyebrows arched high above them and his head tilted slightly down. His expressions always look as though someone has rearranged his features to capture a stock image – big and exaggerated. Here is Korean Teenage Boy Looking At Camera With Doubt.jpeg. Stock image #20032000.

“Why wouldn’t I? Have a little faith in me, it’s not like I’m heartless or anything.”

“I didn’t think you were,” he says, a little defensive. “I just… You know, you’re just very…”

“Very?”

“Cool,” he mutters finally when it’s clear Minho expects an answer. The shell of his ear turns bright red like the tip of an iron rod that has been plunged into flames. “And put-together.”

“And not the type of person to storm into a vet sobbing hysterically because I’ve ran over a cat with my bike in a thunderstorm?”

“I didn’t _mean to,_ ” Hyunjin cries, accidentally drawing attention to the two of them. He buries his head in his hands in embarrassment. “God, you must think I’m a joke. I swear it was an accident.”

Minho grins, grabbing onto one of his arms to tug his hands away from his face. He has to wrestle him with it for a bit since Hyunjin is adamant to hide his face from the world, but thankfully, Minho is much more stubborn. He emerges grudgingly, his lips pushed out into a minor pout.

“I know it was an accident, don’t worry,” Minho says. “And in any case, at least the cat has a chance of finding a home now that it’s been brought off the streets. You might’ve accidentally hurt it, but you’ve done it a favour in the long run.”

“I have?”

He nods.

Just like that, Hyunjin switches, his face brightening with a beam. Minho gets whiplash just from looking at it.

“Okay! It makes me feel a lot better to know that I might’ve helped it out somehow. Thanks, hyung!” He freezes, tucking his bottom lip under his teeth. Minho’s gaze latches onto it for half a beat longer than it should, but Hyunjin doesn’t seem to notice. “I can call you ‘hyung’, right? Or am I getting ahead of myself?”

“I don’t know. Have I earned the right to be your friend yet?”

Hyunjin laughs, the sound bursting out of him, and shoves at his shoulder. “Stop teasing me! You know I just didn’t want to overstep the other day!”

“And in doing that, you broke my heart,” Minho says, dramatically pressing a palm to his chest. “I still haven’t recovered since.”

Hyunjin grins, delighted. “Well, in that case then I guess I _have_ to say that we’re friends,” he concedes. “I can’t just let you die from a broken heart.”

“It _would_ be a bit mean of you,” he says.

Hyunjin laughs again.

Unfortunately, their conversation is cut short there when one of the instructors shouts out from across the studio that break time is over. Minho rises to his feet with some reluctance. He’s been enjoying their conversation, especially now that Hyunjin seems to have broken out of his shy shell some more. He wants to help him tear the last of it down. Wants to see some more of that boy from the night in the rain albeit without so many tears.

Hyunjin is cute. He’s cute and easily flustered and indignant yet sweet. He’s a bit of an oddball, nothing like what it says on the tin can of his reputation. Minho wants to see more of it – more of _him_ , really.

“You know,” he says conversationally, offering a hand to help Hyunjin up. He hauls him upright and then tilts his head back to peer at him. “I don’t know what it’s like for you, but when it comes to me and my friends, I do like to have their numbers.”

“Uh…” Hyunjin blinks several times in a row, clearly caught off-guard. He analyses Minho’s face as if searching for something there so Minho lets his intentions sit upon it, nice and clear for everyone to see. “Sounds good to me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Minho grins and starts to back away from him slowly, still maintaining eye contact. “Stick around after this is over so we can swap them. Yeah?”

Hyunjin smiles so wide his eyes bunch up from the force of it. “Yeah.”

The thing about studying on the DVM course is that Minho’s life gets taken over by it nearly entirely. It’s a greedy degree that eats up every last bit of his social life, especially as they near the end of the spring semester. Minho is buried up to his neck in textbooks and lab sessions, trying to recall everything he has been taught over the past three months in time for his end-of-semester exams. His permanent address becomes the third floor silent study area in the library; when exams actually hit, he even takes to carrying a pillow with him so that he can nap there when he needs to.

“Mate, you’re gonna burn yourself out if you keep up like this,” Chan says one night when Minho makes it back to their apartment just past one am.

He shoves a plastic pot of instant ramen across the table to Minho which he digs into with a small sob. Partly because he has only just realised how hungry he is and partly because all he’s been eating nowadays is instant ramen. By this point, he’s sure his digestive system genuinely hates him. When this semester is over, he’s not going to look at ramen for at least a solid _month._

“Sleep in tomorrow,” Chan suggests. “You’re already two days ahead of your studying schedule, aren’t you?”

“It’s just a buffer in case I get ill.”

And Minho _always_ gets ill right before a big exam. Chan likes to say it’s his body reacting to the stress he’s put it through which is probably right, but it still doesn’t change anything. He needs to get top grades and to do that, he needs to work for it.

Evidently, Chan disagrees.

“But you’re not ill,” he says. “So if I see you out of your room before ten am tomorrow morning, I’m going to floor you.”

“I love it when you say sweet nothings to me.”

“I mean it, Minho,” he warns.

Minho fights the urge to roll his eyes. He loves Chan, he honestly does. They’ve been best friends ever since they met in enrolment week in first year. But unfortunately being best friends with Chan means _being_ _taken care of_ by Chan which means _being_ _kept in_ _check_ by Chan before he burns out. Quite frankly, Minho is too damn busy for that. But he knows that Chan means well so he doesn’t blow up in anger (they don’t need a repeat of what happened this time last year) and instead waggles his eyebrows flirtatiously.

“Is that a promise, baby boy?” he asks, dropping his voice to a seductive murmur.

Chan stands up from his seat, the chair screeching against the floor. “I’m leaving.”

“You know, I _have_ been feeling so very lonely these past few nights,” Minho croons with a grin. He opens his arms wide and nods down to his lap. “Come to daddy.”

“Ew, you’re so gross!”

In response, Minho licks his lips in the sleaziest display he can manage.

Chan screams and flees the kitchen.

Laughing to himself, Minho returns to his ramen. Now that he has some time to breathe away from his textbooks, he realises he hasn’t checked his phone since he left the apartment this morning. He fishes it out of his back pocket to find a new source of entertainment now that he’s chased Chan off.

When he unlocks it, it’s to find sixteen unopened Snapchats, a few notifications from Twitter accounts that he follows, a missed video call from his dad and twenty three texts all in his notification bar. Of the twenty three texts, one is from his dad wishing him luck on his exams, three are from Chan asking him where he is, one is from Changbin telling him not to die on his way home from the library and seventeen are from Hyunjin.

He’s not concerned about the number of texts Hyunjin has sent him. That’s just the sort of texter Hyunjin is. Even though he now knows Minho is spotty with his replies in exam season, he likes to send him a bunch of stuff throughout the day for him to see or answer when he has the time to. Compilations of cute animals for when Minho is stressed, random thoughts that have occurred to him (‘OMG. Have you ever considered that we are living in a parallel world inside of a mirror and we’re just all unaware of it????’), what the weather is like when he’s left his dormitory, how talented the violin player in the street is, how much he’s craving a slushie, a picture of said slushie.

Minho works his way through the replies slowly. No, he has not considered that they’re living in a parallel world inside of a mirror, but he thinks the mirror must be hidden in Area 51 if they are. That is a very, very cute compilation of cute animals, thank you very much; he especially liked the little grey kitten that was cuddling with a dog. The weather was also boiling when he left the apartment this morning and the library was no better, they really need aircon in that place. Yes, that is a very nice-looking slushie and now he wants one too.

Apparently, Hyunjin is still awake when Minho is texting him back because no less than thirty seconds after he sends that last text, a new one flies into his inbox.

**> Hyunjin 🐱**

ngl i am lowkey craving another slushie again loool im addicted

oh my god wait

**Me <**

what abt god

why does he need to wait

**> Hyunjin 🐱**

what if 🥺 you and I 👨❤️👨 had a midnight slushie date 🌌 🧋 right now 👉🏼👈🏼 haha just kidding 😅 unless…? 👀

Minho stares down at his phone, a forkful of ramen still halfway to his mouth. Realistically speaking, he can’t afford to go anywhere right now. He barely has time to sleep as it is, with or without Chan’s prescribed lie-in. He should really just eat this ramen and go to bed.

But it’s been a while since he last saw Hyunjin face-to-face for more than a couple of minutes in passing. It’s been nice texting him in the meantime – but as expressive as he might be, texts don’t quite capture how lively Hyunjin is. He can’t see the larger-than-life gestures Hyunjin is fond of or whether he’s blushing as hard as Minho pictures he might be on the other side of the screen. It hasn’t been long since they exchanged numbers and started flirting, but Minho has already decided he wants to discover each expression Hyunjin has to offer.

**Me <**

sounds like a good idea to me

**> Hyunjin 🐱**

seriously????

**Me <**

you bet

**> Hyunjin 🐱**

OMG YESSSS

i’ll come and pick you up !!

**Me <**

i’ll be waiting 😼

Hyunjin turns up on his bike.

He looks like quite the sight when he cycles into the street. Minho can’t hold back his laughter when he spots him. There Hyunjin is, the supposed Prince of the dance club: riding a black bicycle that has been hand-painted with flowers on nearly every bit of free surface he could reach, dressed in a navy nightie set with little teddy bears all over them. The top half of his hair has been pulled up like the stalk of an apple and he has a pair of fluffy grey sliders on his feet.

“Hey there, hot stuff,” Minho grins, leaning over the handlebars. The woven basket Hyunjin has attached to it presses into his stomach. “Fancy taking me for a ride on your big, bad bike?”

“Only if you’re brave enough,” Hyunjin says with a mirror of his smile.

Laughing again, Minho circles around until he can swing his leg over. Hyunjin shifts forward so he’s no longer sat on the seat, offering it up for Minho to park his butt on, and then rings his bell twice. He looks over his shoulder at Minho.

“Hold on tight. This might get a little wild.”

All too happy to oblige, Minho fastens his arms around Hyunjin’s torso and then off they go.

There’s something so freeing about being on the back of a cute boy’s bike at two in the morning. The city is quiet, nothing but empty streets ahead of them, and a breeze caresses Minho’s face as Hyunjin cycles to the café. He takes the scenic route, wandering through the district first. Minho is content to sit back and enjoy the ride, his hands linked around Hyunjin’s waist. To fill the silence, Hyunjin sings a song by an idol group that has been dominating the chart recently. His voice is sweet, if untrained, and it sounds so pretty to Minho’s ears.

He feels like the protagonist in an indie YA movie. This is the scene that marks the moment where the main character finally steps out of their comfort zone and lets go of the inhibitions that have been plaguing them. Their voices would be muffled in favour of a dreamy synth-pop track that pulls viewers into nostalgia, an electric guitar solo spilling from the speakers as their path is tracked in a drone shot from above. It feels like freedom, like Minho has all of the time in the world.

When they eventually arrive at the café, Hyunjin staggers to a stop, letting out a dramatic groan. “My legs are going to fall off, I can’t do that again.”

“How sad for you,” Minho says dryly. He squeezes Hyunjin’s torso ever so slightly and then releases him, swinging off the bike. “I’ll go and grab the slushies. You stay here and guard your bike.”

“No one will be stealing it from me today,” Hyunjin vows.

Minho slips into the café to grab their drinks. It’s unsurprisingly quiet considering the hour, the sole customer being a businessman hunched over his laptop in the far end of the room. It means there are less people to judge Minho for buying two slushies at some minutes past two in the morning – no one but the cashier, that is anyway, and even she looks too tired to muster up an opinion on Minho’s choice of drink.

He collects the drinks and takes them outside, depositing them on the table that Hyunjin has snagged. His bike rests against the wall just behind him, mere inches away from the back of his chair.

“I wasn’t sure which flavour you wanted so I just got one red one and one blue,” he tells him. “Take your pick.”

Hyunjin straightens up eagerly. “Well, I had red this morning so…” He snatches up the blue slushie with a victorious hiss. It then melts into a yelp when he drinks too quickly on his first sip. “Brain freeze!”

“Drink slower, idiot,” Minho reprimands.

“But it’s _so good!”_

“So then savour it instead of trying to throw it all back in one shot.”

Hyunjin stirs the mixture with his straw, tossing Minho an impressed look. “Once again, you raise a good point. How do you do it?”

“Just natural talent, I suppose.”

Grinning, Minho take a sip of his own slushie (in a manner that is much more measured than Hyunjin was). Its saccharine texture floods his mouth, pressing its colour against his tongue. Minho relishes in it – there’s really nothing quite like a post-midnight snack that you shouldn’t be having but caved into buying anyway. This slushie tops the list for him right now.

Despite Hyunjin’s rushed start, the two of them sit and talk for a while, making their way through their drinks at a leisurely pace. It’s nice to be able to just relax for a moment. To forget all about his exams and labs, everything that has been hounding him during daylight hours and in his sleep too, and to just… be Minho. Be a twenty year old guy who’s sitting with the guy he likes and a drink outside of a café in the middle of Seoul.

He likes talking to Hyunjin. He likes how animated he is whenever he speaks – his voice creeping higher with his excitement, his laughter sharp and sudden. He embodies what he is saying with everything in him. Every shudder, every clap of his hands, every grimace; he genuinely feels those things at heart and expresses it for everyone to see. It’s so unlike Minho that he can’t help but be fascinated by it. Endeared by it, taken.

Hyunjin is just so – _so –_ so…

Cute.

It takes him a moment to realise that he’s said the word out loud, interrupting Hyunjin’s enthusiastic tale about how Seungmin and Jeongin strapped themselves to the lid of a huge plastic container and used it to surf down a flight of stairs at their student accommodation. He only does when Hyunjin’s voice cuts out and he turns bright red, staring at Minho in shock.

“Um… Thank you,” he says softly. “That’s – that’s… Yeah.”

Minho quickly recovers from his blunder with a tease. “Aren’t you going to call me cute too? It’s only fair if I get a compliment as well.”

To his amusement, Hyunjin flushes to an even darker shade of red. “You _are_ cute,” he admits. “Actually. No, you’re not. Cute’s not the right word for it.”

“Then what is?”

Even if his voice is steady while he replies, Hyunjin still can’t meet Minho’s eyes when he does. “Like… Really good-looking. Handsome, I guess.”

“Sexy?” Minho suggests with a grin.

Hyunjin breathes out a laugh and then looks at him carefully.

“What’s going on here?” At Minho’s confusion, he clarifies, “I mean, between us two. I – I know that we’re friends and that you… flirt with me sometimes. I’d be lying if I said I don’t flirt back when I think you are. But is this just like… Ah, I’m not really good with words, sorry. I just want to know if this is real. Like are you being serious when you flirt with me or is this just how you banter with your friends? Because I really can’t tell with you sometimes.”

“Do you want it to be real?”

“Don’t turn this around on me,” he says with a soft snort of laughter. “I asked first.”

He has a fair point there.

“Yes,” Minho admits. “It’s real.”

Even though he’s the one who asked the question, Hyunjin is taken aback by the answer. He lets out a small gasp. “Are you being serious?”

“As serious as a heart attack,” he confirms. He sucks on the straw of his drink, only to find that all of the liquid has been sucked dry from it already. All that remains is faintly-stained crushed ice. Minho scoops a small pile onto the bottom of his straw and tosses that into his mouth. “I like you, Hyunjin.”

Hyunjin bites his lip, peering at him apprehensively. “Even though I’m annoying?”

Okay yeah, maybe Hyunjin can annoy him sometimes. As much as Minho likes how expressive the younger is, it’s something that extends to _all_ of Hyunjin’s emotions. Meaning that he is just as likely to fire up over something inconsequential as he is to collapse with laughter over a terrible joke. He’s insecure about trivial details and obsessive about what he likes and everything is a big deal to him. As someone who prefers to not let anything bother him, it means that Minho doesn’t always understand and that can cause problems.

So yeah, he can be annoying. So what? Minho can be just as annoying in return.

Not everyone likes how he lets go of things before they can bother him, believing that all it does is dismiss its importance to the people who _do_ care and take it seriously. He’s also someone who finds it hard to express affection so blatantly and he likes to rib the shit out of the people he’s closest to. And his dedication to his degree and job is probably be considered unhealthy by a lot of people since he’s absolutely shit at maintaining a nice work-life balance when he really gets stuck into things. So it's not like Minho doesn't have his flaws either.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if Hyunjin can be annoying. Most people are that way, Minho included.

“I like you,” he repeats firmly and he leaves no room for argument when he does. “I don’t think you’re annoying, not really.”

“No, I know I am. It’s just how I was built, I guess.”

“Then I guess I’m just into cute boys who are annoying,” he says with a shrug. “And not just at three in the morning over melted slushies.”

Hyunjin raises his eyebrows, his face printed with a challenge. “If we do this, I’ll probably get on your nerves just so you know.”

“Probably.”

“And bother you a lot,” he adds.

“I like being bothered.”

“Sometimes just to see how you react.”

“I’ll just bite your arm if you do,” Minho replies easily.

Hyunjin recoils. “Bite… my arm?” he echoes, horrified.

He nods as seriously as he can manage, making sure to keep his face completely straight. Not one trace of amusement seeps to the surface.

“Mhm, that’s right. Just grab your arm – “ He takes Hyunjin’s left arm and lifts it to his mouth. “ – and bite into it.”

He snaps his teeth inches away from Hyunjin’s flesh. Hyunjin shrieks, snatching his arm back. His eyes dance with delight.

“That doesn’t sound very hygienic,” he says breathlessly. “Just taking a bite out of my raw arm like that.”

“You’re right,” Minho muses. “I’d probably have to cook you first.”

“Please don’t deep-fry me. I don’t want all of that oil to get into my hair, I try to take good care of it.”

“Don’t worry,” he assures him. “When I’m not in exam season, I eat very healthily. It’s straight to the air fryer for you.” He scans Hyunjin from head to toe, his head cocked to one side. “Hmm… I’d say twenty minutes in the air fryer at one hundred and eighty degrees should do the trick, don’t you?”

Hyunjin shivers. “Scary.”

“But before I do all of that, I think a date would be a good idea. After my exams, of course. What do you say?”

The playfulness to Hyunjin fades away at the offer, replaced with a shy demeanour that Minho has fast become familiar with. Thankfully, there is no self-deprecating streak to it this time. It’s just Hyunjin with his galaxy eyes and a tentative smile that he tries to bite back. He rubs his thumb over the thick ring on his index finger.

“Sounds good to me,” he says.

A smile slowly spreads across Minho’s face. He leans across to tuck a stray strand of hair that has escaped Hyunjin’s apple top to behind his ear.

“Good,” he murmurs.

Now that they’re this close, Minho can’t stop staring at him. At the teardrop mole just below his left eye, at the anticipation unfolding across his features. At his pretty, plump lips that have been stained blue from his drink. He’s close enough to tilt his head to brush his nose along the length of Hyunjin’s, to hear the way Hyunjin's breath hitches in the back of his throat at the gesture.

“Hurry up and kiss me,” Hyunjin whispers.

Minho grins, wide like the Cheshire Cat, and then obliges.

He fits his mouth against Hyunjin’s in a long and lingering kiss, his hand cupping the side of his face. It tastes sweet like sugar syrup. Addictive. Their lips slide against each other with an ease that Minho doesn’t expect, as though they have already done this half a dozen times before. For all of his shyness, Hyunjin is a good kisser – and an expressive one too. He keeps making these faint noises in the back of his throat to express his approval and Minho swallows them all whole, taking whatever Hyunjin wants to offer up.

It doesn’t really surprise him that he’s so loud when they’re making out. The thought is a thrilling one. Who knows how loud Hyunjin can get if Minho pushes the right buttons? Excitement unfurls in his stomach. He forces himself to break away with a heavy pant, eyes still shut.

“Wow,” he hears Hyunjin breathe shakily.

Minho can only agree. “Wow.”

He opens his eyes to offer Hyunjin a smile, only to burst into laughter. Hyunjin cracks his eyes open too although this time it's in confusion – until they land upon Minho’s mouth. He breaks out into his own set of giggles.

“I forgot that blue and red mix together to make purple."

“You look like a grape,” Minho says, gleeful.

“First you threaten to air fry me at two hundred degrees – “

“One hundred and eighty.”

“ – and now you’re comparing me to fruit. I’m beginning to think you have a problem, hyung,” Hyunjin sighs. The performance isn’t very convincing. “That, or all of the instant ramen has finally gotten to your head.”

“God knows it has enough chemicals to,” Minho says.

Hyunjin laughs, even though the joke isn’t especially funny. Minho just watches him, feeling impossibly fond, his smile smeared purple.

Dawn is breaking out over the horizon by the time Hyunjin finally comes to a stop outside of Minho’s apartment block. The air is already starting to stir with the warmth of another mid-June day, but they could be in the dead of winter and Minho suspects he’d feel just as warm. He doesn’t get up from the bike immediately and just squeezes Hyunjin closer to him, resting his cheek against his shoulder blade.

“Are you okay back there?” Hyunjin calls.

Minho hums. “Yeah. Just comfortable.”

“Fair enough,” he says, patting the back of Minho’s hand where It rests on his stomach. “Try not to fall asleep though.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.”

They sit out there for another five minutes. Not exchanging any words, not singing under their breath – nothing but a content silence. Minho is loath to let go of it just yet and return to the busyness that has been his everyday life recently so he holds off on leaving for as long as he can. When Hyunjin starts to yawn, however, he admits defeat and climbs down.

“Thanks, Hyunjinnie,” he says. “Tonight was fun. We should do it again.”

“For sure!” Hyunjin agrees.

Smiling softly, Minho curls a hand over his shoulder and leans in to kiss him goodbye and goodnight. The kiss quickly dissolves into a yawn. The two of them pull away giggling.

“Go to sleep hyung,” Hyunjin says. “You clearly need it.”

“Ugh, I get it, I’m going _._ Make sure you text me when you make it back to your place.”

“Will do,” he says, lifting his hand in the symbol for scout’s honour. He snatches it away when Minho snaps his teeth at his fingertips. “Jesus Christ, you’re literally feral.”

“Aw, you finally noticed.”

For all of his evil ministrations, Minho still insists on staying outside to see Hyunjin off. He fights off the tiredness that lingers in the grit in his eyes and wraps his arms around himself, trying to snuggle into what cosiness a t-shirt can provide him. His eyes remain on Hyunjin’s figure as he cycles off on his little black and floral bike (and loops around in a circle twice to wave goodbye). Stay fixed to the navy smudge at the far end of the street until it turns a corner and disappears from view.

His programme director would kill him if he ever heard Minho admit it, but god he’s glad Hyunjin ran over that cat.

**Author's Note:**

> i have no idea if anything from that vet scene is even accurate, i've never owned anything but fish. i did a few google searches for research, but the internet is wide and full of many conflicting articles and i am easily overwhelmed. i do, however, now know that snu offers a 6 year vet med course that is split into pre-vet and dvm
> 
> the kind of music i imagine would've been playing in their indie YA coming-of-age movie moment is something along the lines of the guitar solo in [somebody else](https://youtu.be/VNsd8Yo5zvc?t=244) by the 1975
> 
> let me know if you liked this! thanks for reading <33
> 
> [[twt](https://twitter.com/thotforcsy)] | [[cc](https://curiouscat.me/jjasmine)]


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